A Voice For Chicago

The Enlightened World of Malcolm London

Words by Jake Krez  •  Photo by Chris Dilts

Arriving at the courthouse on California and 26th Street on November 25 nerves seemed to be everywhere. Walking down the sidewalk with Westley Parker and Qari from Hurt Everybody led to the concrete plaza where a couple hundred of supporters had assembled; you could feel the winter barreling towards us with pre-Thanksgiving chill. As we got closer, we passed a gang of Chicago police officers gathered on the sidewalk who squinted their eyes and chuckled when they saw the three of us approaching. The previous night, cops just like these essentially kidnapped local activist and artist Malcolm London as he was leading a peaceful protest march in the wake of the release of the video of Laquan McDonald being gunned down in the street by CPD officer Jason Van Dyke. A leader of the Black Youth Project, London had been prepared for the video’s release, denied Rahm Emanuel a conversation, and took to the streets to help organize those making their voices heard.

Suddenly, as London was wrapping up for the night and thanking supporters for participating in the peaceful evening, a smoke bomb went off Those in attendance turned back around as London was being dragged off by police to an unmarked car.

Back at the courthouse, people waited outside of his bond hearing. A certain sense of holiday spirit hung in the air and the few hundred people that gathered outside certainly had a purpose as hugs and spirited conversation dotted the small concrete plaza of Chicagoans. There to support their friend and colleague, the 22-year-old who had been arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer.

Then the chatter stopped. Someone peeked through the window, shrieking, “There he is!” At once, the whole crowd loosely hanging on the plaza rushed to the tinted glass doors and embraced their hero from the night before; apparently the punch he allegedly threw didn’t land as hard in the morning as it did during the nighttime protests. As London took the moment in while getting rushed by news cameras and well-wishers, the look on his face was telling. A longtime proponent for the city’s disenfranchised, London had followed a consistent path towards a movement that now manifested itself before him.

While the moment was certainly palpable and the three thousand or so new followers on social media will help future endeavors, the experience was just the latest in a series of special moments that have paced London’s life to this point. As he inches more and more into the national spotlight as both a poet and an activist, he is beginning to fully understand his role in the larger picture.

“For me it feels tough sometimes being in the world of activism or at least in the world where all I do is talk about political shit, which is what I do but sometimes people are just trying to live,” said Malcolm last Monday after the  tumultuous Thanksgiving holiday. “Sometimes I know people believe in the work I do and want to see the world change but don’t always come out the way I’d hope so when that happened I was a little surprised. I was like wow, all that support gave me some affirmation that people are actually paying attention, people are listening, people do care.”

At 22, Malcolm London is many things to many people. Looked at as a teacher, an activist, a poet, and a musician among other titles, he has learned to juggle his myriad responsibilities while also remaining light enough on his feet to still have fun and do things other young men his age do.It might seem like a small aside in a larger story, but at a time when Twitter and the ever-increasing PC culture of the Internet become the prevailing voice in matters, transparency is as important as ever. The ability to be a real person who also cares about issues and problems around them rather than selling themselves as a holier-than-thou messiah is what will be necessary moving forward. America likes to build up characters before it spikes them down, a process which can’t happen if you stay grounded from the get-go. While Malcolm is known for his work for others, it is readily obvious that nothing he does directly defines him as a person.

London’s story began where much of the new Chicago school of thought did: YouMedia and Young Chicago Authors. Formed by Brother Mike (RIP) and Kevin Coval, the after-school programs that began as a creative outlet have since become a breeding ground for the city’s brightest minds. When I first met Malcolm London it was in February 2013 for a Chicago Sun-Times story focusing on young African-Americans changing the city in creative ways. We conducted the interview after he got off work at YCA and his words seemed to be carefully chosen, his thoughts thoroughly packaged yet open-ended. Then, at just 19 and fresh off his performance on his own TED Talk, he had established his voice in the city by winning its largest youth poetry competition; Louder Than A Bomb. At the time of the interview, he was working as a teacher at YCA and working with students side-by-side before moving onto a position with the competition he won, LTAB.

Malcolm is a paradoxical figure that has found himself at the center of several collectives that have found their way to the national spotlight. He came up working and performing in the same spaces as his friends who now appear on everything from the blogosphere to Billboard. Likewise, he also has been involved in several initiatives in Chicago such as the Black Youth Project, which have similarly found themselves in the news as of late, albeit for markedly different reasons. A collection of young progressively-minded Chicagoans, BYP’s website describes the organization as  “a national research project launched in 2004 that examined the attitudes,resources, and culture of African American youth ages 15 to 25, exploring how these factors and others influence the decision-making, norms, and behavior of black youth.”

“Malcolm has been instrumental to Chicago’s contribution to the black urban uprisings of the last year or so often called the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and also to the nationwide conversation on incarceration and criminalization issues,” said Ethan Viets-VanLear, a fellow local organizer and artist and part of BYP. “When I started doing organzing 4 years ago it was almost impossible to find young men my age doing the work as well. I immediately gravitated toward Malcolm as an example of how to plug in. I think he also navigates the intersection between art and action seamlessly. He's a true leader who's also aware he has a lot of work to do both in changing the system and transforming self.”

About this time last year, YCA co-founder Brother Mike passed away which served as a swift punch in the gut to much of the city’s vibrant creative community. Having not had the opportunity to meet him myself, it was still impossible to not feel the sadness that permeated the city in the days and weeks after his death. Unexpectedly, his passing had a profound effect on Malcolm’s relationship with Chancelor Bennett, known to the rest of the world as Chance The Rapper. The two had been friends for awhile, but used the moment to come together even more and embarked on a summer that saw them infuse the kind of real change into communities that dollars and cents can’t buy. Together with a dedicated group of friends and colleagues, the pair spearheaded initiatives that offered time over money, hosting monthly Open Mikes for local CPS students, surprising summer campers with trips to museums, and bringing Kendrick Lamar to town for Teens in the Park, their collaborative effort to give teenagers in the city something uplifting to do.

That summer also saw Malcolm begin to truly come of age as an artist. Perhaps the increased time near the creative sun that is Chance allowed London to feel that he had done a lot in the realm of activism yet wanted to shift focus back to his poetry and music: the things that served as an entrance into this world in the first place. It was an inevitable part of spending much of the year doing both things, the segue an organic one. Working closely with Maceo Haymes of The O’My’s he recorded music and performed his collaboration “Blood” alongside the band this summer at North Coast Music Festival. He stepped away from his position as director of Louder Than A Bomb and opened himself up to the world a bit more, allowing for new experiences.

“For the last three years I’ve been organizing pretty much all of my time. I worked at YCA and Louder Than A Bomb and stuff but the majority of my time has been dedicated to organizing which I think is great and I think needs to happen. But as an organizer and as a person who understand this life, this work is my life’s work. It’s essentially trying to transform the world as the person that I am and trying to lead the world externally,” said London.

Having traveled to the United Nations earlier this year as part of a local coalition that presented abuses of the Chicago Police Department to the leaders of the world, London perhaps felt the need to step aside and allow for others within BYP to grow. With that in mind he began stepping away from being the face of the organizing efforts so that others could step in and build their own following and stature. It was around that time that folks around town started hearing about a terrifying video of a teenager from Chicago being gunned down in the street by a police officer. It was around that time that Malcolm realized no matter his personal path or feelings, both worlds will always have a hold on him.

“I was going to step back, I was going to step down from my leadership role at BYP and just be more in the background so that I could really be able to be in my art and it was the poetry that brought me to critical thinking and without that practice it kind of makes me suffer not only as an organizer and as a person,” said London. “The whole experience recently reinvigorated my spirit but it also put me in the spotlight in a way that I was kind of trying to get away from in the world of organizing and activism and the movement, I was kind of trying to step away but I know that I’m going to be very adamant about responding to this moment with art.”

Standing outside the courthouse as friends and followers smothered London in hugs, kisses and well-wishes, it was damn near impossible to not get caught up in the moment. Malcolm certainly is a lot of things to a lot of different people and I can’t help thinking that in that moment all of those roles found one another in perfect synchronicity, a realization of things tried and a inference to what the future may hold. We need people like Malcolm London and we need to make sure they thrive because the ability of a person to at once be firm in what they believe in and gentle enough to understand the intricacies of those around them is a special gift that deserves to see the world.

For London’s part, he’s just happy to be doing what he loves.

“I want to do what I want to do while I have time, I’m starting to feel old,” said London with a laugh. “Being around my artist friends who are doing what they love and doing it, I was a national organizer at Young Chicago Authors and it was a great gig but I could see myself doing that the rest of my life and I wasn’t ready to make that kind of commitment. Right now I’m just like let me take advantage of my time, I tried the school thing and it didn’t really work out so I feel this is my college experience. Getting to know myself artistically and just giving it a try. I have nothing to lose in making an art project and releasing my book and just having fun with it because I think I’ll be alright otherwise.”